(This post was originally posted two years ago today, on Facebook. It showed up today on my Facebook “Memories”)

I am intrigued with the eagerness people seem to have to “expose” eco-theological concerns as some form of idolatry, and thus apostasy. It strikes me as rather blind to the clear ecological consciousness of Scripture; which should be recognized from the very start (Genesis accounts: The Creation, at every step, is declared “Good” and “Very Good”, and God’s first “intentions” for humans being a purpose as regards the Earth: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” (2:15), and the constant inclusion of the welfare of the Earth in subsequent dealings with humankind’s faithfulness , such as the covenant with Noah, the “If my people, which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and ***heal their land***. Jeremiah and Isaiah were both (especially Jeremiah) prone to invoking ecological connections to Israel’s infidelities (and repentances) .

We Western Christians sure have “buried” that sense of eco-awareness that the ancient people had (and that , apparently, God had as well , judging by how often God and the Prophets were so prone to linking fidelity to God and the well-being of the Earth).